Peru Guide
Lima
Huaca Pucllana
Address: General Borgoño 800
Opening time: Wed– Mon 9am–4.30pm
Price: $2.20
Telephone: 4458695
The Huaca Pucllana, a temple, administrative centre and pre-Columbian tomb in the middle of suburban Miraflores, is a good first stop in the suburb. This vast pre-Inca adobe mound continues to dwarf most of the houses around and has a small site museum, craft shop and very good restaurant with a nice terrace. It's just a five-minute walk from Avenida Arequipa, on the right as you come from Lima Centro at block 44, and similarly close to blocks 5 and 6 of Avenida Angamos Oeste. One of a large number of huacas and palaces that formerly stretched across this part of the valley, little is known about the Pucllana, though it seems likely that it was originally named after a pre-Inca chief of the area. It has a hollow core running through its cross section and is believed to have been constructed in the shape of an enormous frog, symbol of the rain god, who evidently spoke to priests through a tube connected to the cavern at its heart. This site may well have been the mysteriously unknown oracle after which the Rimac (meaning "he who speaks") Valley was named; a curious document from 1560 affirms that the "devil" spoke at this mound. From the top of the huaca you can see over the office buildings and across the flat roofs of multicoloured houses in the heart of Miraflores.